Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #103 Respite In A Full House

Transcript

#103 Respite In A Full House · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coolson. It's
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  Speaker 1: the podcast for the time poor parent who just one answers.
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  Speaker 1: Now we are Luke and Suzi. We're our husband and
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  Speaker 1: wife radio team. We have three young boys, and today
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  Speaker 1: we are talking about this time of respite that we're
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  Speaker 1: being given as a part of COVID nineteen, the response
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  Speaker 1: that we're making as a nation. How do we navigate this,
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  Speaker 1: Will it actually be respite in our homes? How can
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  Speaker 1: we make sure it's a good time? Isn't it interesting?
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  Speaker 1: I like it when we have conversations about stuff, Lou
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  Speaker 1: because you have such a different perspective to me. And
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  Speaker 1: we were just talking about the opportunity that the current
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  Speaker 1: circumstance has given people a lot of people working from home.
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  Speaker 1: Now I look at that and I think they're going
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  Speaker 1: to find out how efficient they can be because they're
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  Speaker 1: not being interrupted by workmates all day through the casual conversation,
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  Speaker 1: not having necessarily the same breaks, or stopping for birthday cake,
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  Speaker 1: or you know, having to travel to and from work,
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  Speaker 1: and suddenly that frees up all of this time in
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  Speaker 1: the day that would otherwise be invested in the office.
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  Speaker 1: What do you do with that at home. How brilliant
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  Speaker 1: you look at it and go, now there's no space.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this lack of respite. And you know, the
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  Speaker 2: interesting thing is because it's not from my own personal
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  Speaker 2: feelings that makes me aware of the lack of respite
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  Speaker 2: and they're always having children in your space, it's from you.
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  Speaker 2: It's that how difficult it is for you to switch off.
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  Speaker 2: The time I get I see you switch off is
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  Speaker 2: when the children are at school and whether you're working,
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  Speaker 2: whether you're doing something else. That's your U time, which
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  Speaker 2: you so desperately need to stay in balance.
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  Speaker 1: And your guarantee that you give us as a parenting
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  Speaker 1: expert is that we will be a happy family. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you say it right there in the website happy families
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  Speaker 1: dot com. But a you doctor justin Coolson, are our
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  Speaker 1: family is going to be happy through this time?
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  Speaker 3: They can be. I'm feeling a little bit of pressure now.
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  Speaker 3: My eyes just went wide as sources as you put
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  Speaker 3: that on me, I.
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  Speaker 1: Was pointing at the time. So it does make it
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  Speaker 1: more intimidating, a.
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  Speaker 3: Little bit threatened here. They can be, But it really
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  Speaker 3: comes down to how we're going to set our expectations
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  Speaker 3: and boundaries and what we can do with our children now.
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  Speaker 3: The reality is as we spend more time at home,
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  Speaker 3: which is being required of many more of us now,
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  Speaker 3: and who knows in the future it might become even
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  Speaker 3: more required of us. As we spend more time, we
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  Speaker 3: have a tremendous opportunity if we embrace it, to connect
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  Speaker 3: and develop our family in ways that we usually just
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  Speaker 3: don't have time to do. I think this is a wonderful,
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  Speaker 3: extraordinarily good opportunity. Of course, anyone who runs a small
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  Speaker 3: business from home, or who is now being told by
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  Speaker 3: their major employer to work from home, is going are
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  Speaker 3: you not? How am I going to do this? This
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  Speaker 3: is insane? So I've got a couple of ideas.
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  Speaker 2: That might be useful great well, and a couple of
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  Speaker 2: ideas it won't be useful at all.
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  Speaker 3: That's good.
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  Speaker 1: Every family, they start with the helpful ones.
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  Speaker 3: Every family is different. The first one that I'm actually
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  Speaker 3: going to recommend is that we relax the tech rules
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  Speaker 3: normally in our homes. We've got this thing about and
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  Speaker 3: every parent does it differently, but most parents recognize that
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  Speaker 3: too much technology is not going to be a good thing,
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  Speaker 3: and we want to reduce the amount of tech that
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  Speaker 3: our children are exposed to because you know, screens and
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  Speaker 3: square eyes and all that kind of stuff. Plus they're
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  Speaker 3: not outside, they're not being active, and that's bad for
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  Speaker 3: their health. All that still remains true. The reality is, though,
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  Speaker 3: that we just have to get stuff done sometimes, and
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  Speaker 3: that might mean that we have to say to the kids,
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  Speaker 3: you get some extended screen time today. You can watch
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  Speaker 3: that movie, or you can do a bit of extra
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  Speaker 3: extra schoolwork. You know, there's all these education software programs
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  Speaker 3: that the children usually use as part of their schooling anyway,
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  Speaker 3: and they really do like the games, especially if they're
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  Speaker 3: in primary school. High school perhaps not quite so much.
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  Speaker 3: But let's let them actually go and do that. I
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  Speaker 3: did see a meme that was posted that made me laugh.
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  Speaker 3: It was completely inappropriate, but she it made me laugh.
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  Speaker 3: The mum is sitting at her computer, she's obviously working
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  Speaker 3: from home. She's got their headphones on and just staring
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  Speaker 3: at the screen. And on the floor behind her on
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  Speaker 3: a mattress, she's got her three children. They're laying down,
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  Speaker 3: their hands are tied in front of them, and they've
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  Speaker 3: got some you know, some cloth in their mouth. Obviously,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not recommending that that's one of the bad ideas.
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  Speaker 3: But sometimes as parents we feel like that, like, can
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  Speaker 3: you all just I'd like to lock you in the
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  Speaker 3: room and just not listen to you for an hour
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  Speaker 3: so I can get this work done.
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  Speaker 1: Well, this is it, because it feels like it's now
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  Speaker 1: that experience that we have as parents is going to
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  Speaker 1: be exacerbated. So the normal experience is if you're not
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  Speaker 1: doing anything important, the children are fine, but as soon
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  Speaker 1: as you pick up the phone to make a phone call,
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  Speaker 1: they all need you immediately, And so that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: I guess the thought going in is how are we
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  Speaker 1: going to navigate it if I've got important work to
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  Speaker 1: do but the children are constantly going to interrupt because
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  Speaker 1: we're there and they want to be with us.
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  Speaker 3: So this is my next big idea. I think that
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  Speaker 3: we should work in sprints. When we're working at home
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  Speaker 3: with children, we need to recognize we're not going to
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  Speaker 3: get two hours or four hours or six hours of
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  Speaker 3: uninterrupted time to blast through all of the productivity things
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  Speaker 3: that we need to do. So working in sprints means
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  Speaker 3: that we go and spend some time with the kids
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  Speaker 3: for fifteen minutes and then we say all right, guys,
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  Speaker 3: for the next thirty minutes or the next forty five minutes,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to be in this task. What are you
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  Speaker 3: going to be doing? And we work in these fifteen on,
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  Speaker 3: forty five off. Oh sorry sorry, fifteen off, forty five on. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: And there's a handful of other ways that we can
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  Speaker 3: manage this as well. We might decide that fifteen is
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  Speaker 3: not enough, we need to do thirty. With the children.
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  Speaker 3: It depends on their age and their capacity. Have a
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  Speaker 3: jar with activities that they can do while you're busy,
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  Speaker 3: so that they're not going to be I'm bored. That's
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  Speaker 3: not fair, you know. Give them, give them a sense
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  Speaker 3: of autonomy. Let them choose what they'll do when you're
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  Speaker 3: taking that break. Go for a walk with them. If
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  Speaker 3: you're fortunate enough to live in an area where it's
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  Speaker 3: warm enough and you have a swimming pool, go for
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  Speaker 3: a swim. Go throw a ball with the children, or
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  Speaker 3: kick a ball, or go for a little bike ride.
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  Speaker 3: Do something where you're actually being active and physical with them.
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  Speaker 3: Have a wrestle on the floor, read them a story,
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  Speaker 3: go on, bake some muffins. Just do something to reduce
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  Speaker 3: the pressure on you and on them when they're engaged,
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  Speaker 3: then you can get back to work and you set
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  Speaker 3: the boundaries. Well, this is the other critical thing. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: I've spent that time with you, but I'm spending the
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  Speaker 3: time with you now because I've got to go do
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  Speaker 3: some work. Shortly. Let's set the oven time and let's
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  Speaker 3: set the timer on the iPad. Let's look at the clock.
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  Speaker 3: When the clockhand gets to there, that's when we're going
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  Speaker 3: to do our next activity. Let's work out what it's
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  Speaker 3: going to be. Dive into the jar pull out activity. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: we're doing that in forty five minutes. We're doing that
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  Speaker 3: in an hour and a half. We're doing that in
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  Speaker 3: twenty six minutes. Depending on the attention span of your children,
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  Speaker 3: and that gives them something to look forward to. They
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  Speaker 3: also now know that they've only got to occupy themselves
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  Speaker 3: until such and such a time before I get time
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  Speaker 3: with mum or dad again.
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  Speaker 1: So this might take for us at the end of
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  Speaker 1: our work day and when the kids have gone to
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  Speaker 1: bed and the days all settled, and we finally got
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  Speaker 1: that half time, taking maybe fifteen minutes to actually think
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  Speaker 1: about what have I got to do work wise tomorrow
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  Speaker 1: and how can I split it up so that I
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  Speaker 1: get everything I need to get done. And also, what's
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  Speaker 1: a great cake recipe that takes ten minutes in preparation
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  Speaker 1: and cooks for forty five minutes so that we can
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  Speaker 1: do that as a process across the day and afternoon
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  Speaker 1: tea time comes, we've got a freshly baked cake that
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  Speaker 1: we've you know, prepped in one break, got out of
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  Speaker 1: the oven in the next break, and I asked you
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  Speaker 1: that cake to Yeah, I've got it in my head
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  Speaker 1: how I'm going to do this, But that prep time,
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  Speaker 1: I think is going to be important for us, right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it doesn't. Listening to you, I'm starting to
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  Speaker 3: feel burdened as a parent. I'm like, oh no, I've
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  Speaker 3: got to do something else, and I just want to
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  Speaker 3: get the kids to bed and be a human for
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  Speaker 3: a minute, because sometimes it doesn't feel like we are
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  Speaker 3: humans when we're parents. It's almost like they're mutually exclusive propositions.
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  Speaker 3: The great thing is, though, you probably only need to
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  Speaker 3: come up with let's say four activities a day, and
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  Speaker 3: like you said, one of them can be baking a treat,
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  Speaker 3: another one could be something physical, another one might I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you decide, you work it out, but The cool thing
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  Speaker 3: about this is you don't have to come up with
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  Speaker 3: new things every day. If the children are enjoying what
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  Speaker 3: you're doing, don't reinvent the will do it again tomorrow,
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  Speaker 3: or come up with two or three that you can
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  Speaker 3: rotate through every second or third day. The main thing
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  Speaker 3: is we do need to be a bit proactive. A
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  Speaker 3: little bit of prior preparation prevents a lousy day at work,
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  Speaker 3: alousid down the officer, prevents poor performance for our family.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, but I reckon ten minutes and have a
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  Speaker 3: chat with the children about it, and don't make it
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  Speaker 3: a big deal. Make it really simple. Put it up
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  Speaker 3: on the white board, or put it up on the
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  Speaker 3: fridge or on your corkboard or wherever it is that
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  Speaker 3: you write these things. No way, it's already planned. You
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  Speaker 3: know what you're doing, and the children will get used
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  Speaker 3: to the change, they will settle into the new groove,
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  Speaker 3: they will learn to occupy themselves, and.
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  Speaker 1: We need to give them some credit as well. Our
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  Speaker 1: children actually already have a routine that they are familiar with.
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  Speaker 1: They have a school timetable they're running to every day
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  Speaker 1: and they I don't know, I think there's some scope
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  Speaker 1: in there that actually will allow them to be self
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  Speaker 1: well as Lot ten. It does depend on their age,
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  Speaker 1: I get that, but they're good little self learners. They're
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  Speaker 1: excited learners when they're young, and when they're older, they're
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  Speaker 1: old enough to go down the street by themselves for
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  Speaker 1: ten minutes.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, Sure, it depends on the age of the child.
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  Speaker 3: Five year olds, you're going to have to do a
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  Speaker 3: lot more prep work, a lot more leg work, and
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  Speaker 3: expect a lot more interruptions. We've got to balance our
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  Speaker 3: expectations appropriately. We can't expect our children to act like
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  Speaker 3: adults their children, so let's remember that. Other than that, though,
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  Speaker 3: I really think if we can put our technology down
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  Speaker 3: and give them good quality time, we're going to have
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  Speaker 3: better outcomes. So put the phone away, concentrate on the kids,
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  Speaker 3: at least in those in those sins. Yeah, and then
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  Speaker 3: and then do another sprint at work. And you know
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  Speaker 3: you've got to be efficient because you've only got that
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  Speaker 3: little bit of time, So dive in great, awesome.
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  Speaker 2: Well some plenty to think about, and just to relax
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  Speaker 2: and give ourselves the ability and just just on a
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  Speaker 2: side note, we've had productivity experts in the show who
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  Speaker 2: probably even without children tell us to do things like
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  Speaker 2: forty five minutes or fifty minutes on then go and
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  Speaker 2: take a break, excited to come back, and they reckon,
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  Speaker 2: you're more productive when you regularly take that little snapshot
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  Speaker 2: of a break from what you're doing.
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  Speaker 3: So it's amazing, I should take up some consultancy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that kind of in a sense what you do?
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  Speaker 2: Just okay, doctor Justin calls it our guests, thank you
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  Speaker 2: so much.
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  Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed the podcast, we'd love for you to
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• 9:56
  Speaker 1: said this is a great podcast for overwhelmed modern parents.
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  Speaker 1: Each is isn't too long, succeeding enough. You can listen
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to one on the school run. It offers sensible, helpful
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and practical advice you can put into action immediately. You
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  Speaker 1: can find more resources at the website happyfamilies dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot au